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BMW's Quandt family in hot water over Merkel campaign contributions

The mysterious and elusive Quandt family is in hot water again, nearly two years after its Nazi connections during World War II were exposed. The German family's patriarch, Herbert Quandt, nearly single-handedly saved BMW from being bought out by Daimler-Benz in 1959. Now, three living family members own nearly half of the German brand, and stand accused of buying votes with donations to the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, mere days ahead of a European Union vote that would cap vehicle emissions.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union accepted three donations, one from each shareholding member of the Quandt family.
Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union accepted three donations, one from each shareholding member of the Quandt family, totaling 690,000 euros ($935,000), on October 9. The CDU, for what it's worth, claim the donations weren't related to any political decisions and that the family have been donors for years. A Quandt family spokesperson, meanwhile, said that the family had been waiting for Germany's September 22 elections to pass before making a large contribution to the CDU.

The next-generation wearable will be your car

This year's CES has had a heavy emphasis on the class of device known as the "wearable" – think about the Apple Watch, or Fitbit, if that's helpful. These devices usually piggyback off of a smartphone's hardware or some other data connection and utilize various onboard sensors and feedback devices to interact with the wearer. In the case of the Fitbit, it's health tracking through sensors that monitor your pulse and movement; for the Apple Watch and similar devices, it's all that and some more. Manufacturers seem to be developing a consensus that vehicles should be taking on some of a wearable's functionality. As evidenced by Volvo's newly announced tie-up with the Microsoft Band 2 fitness tracking wearable, car manufacturers are starting to explore how wearable devices will help drivers. The On Call app brings voice commands, spoken into the Band 2, into the mix. It'll allow you to pass an address from your smartphone's agenda right to your Volvo's nav system, or to preheat your car. Eventually, Volvo would like your car to learn things about your routines, and communicate back to you – or even, improvise to help you wake up earlier to avoid that traffic that might make you late. Do you need to buy a device, like the $249 Band 2, and always wear it to have these sorts of interactions with your car? Despite the emphasis on wearables, CES 2016 has also given us a glimmer of a vehicle future that cuts out the wearable middleman entirely. Take Audi's new Fit Driver project. The goal is to reduce driver stress levels, prevent driver fatigue, and provide a relaxing interior environment by adjusting cabin elements like seat massage, climate control, and even the interior lighting. While it focuses on a wearable device to monitor heart rate and skin temperature, the Audi itself will use on-board sensors to examine driving style and breathing rate as well as external conditions – the weather, traffic, that sort of thing. Could the seats measure skin temperature? Could the seatbelt measure heart rate? Seems like Audi might not need the wearable at all – the car's already doing most of the work. Whether there's a device on a driver's wrist or not, manufacturers seem to be developing a consensus that vehicles should be taking on some of a wearable's functionality.

BMW 7 Series to get quad-turbo diesel?

Sometime in 2016 BMW will ask its customers, "Would you like more turbos with your turbos?" Reports are the Bavarian company is working on an inline six-cylinder quad-turbocharged 3.0-liter diesel engine to replace the tri-turbo 3.0-liter diesel currently used in performance products like the all-wheel-drive X5 M50d and X6 M50d sold in other markets. The current N57 performance diesel is called the M Performance TwinPower Turbo. The new one, said to be codenamed B57 TOP, will first make its way into the new 7 Series that will be called the M750d. The coming quad-turbo diesel is expected to produce at least 400 hp and 590 lb-ft. It isn't known yet whether the additional turbo will be electric or conventional, nor how the new turbos will be sized relative to one another. At least one outlet figures the power numbers will be conservative for this first outing, so they could go up. After its launch in the 7 Series, it could migrate to create the next-generation G30 5 Series M550d, and the X5 M50d, X6 M50d, and X7 M50d. It's unclear if BMW has plans to bring this high performance engine to the US market. Related Video: The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience. News Source: BMW Blog, AutocarImage Credit: Copyright 2015 AOL BMW Crossover Diesel Vehicles Luxury Performance Sedan engine bmw diesel